Wealth, happiness, and suicide; Any meaningful relationship in the countries?

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue IV, April 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

Wealth, happiness, and suicide; Any meaningful relationship in the countries?

Abdullah Murat Tuncer
Ph.D. Student, Conley American University, Honolulu, USA

Abstract: In randomly selected 29 countries, it has been investigated whether there is a relationship between happiness indices, GDP/capita as an income rate, and suicide incidences based on countries and whether there is a clustering of countries.
In our study we showed that positive correlation between income rate and happiness rate (r=0.89, p<0.001), and a positive correlation were also found between GDP/capita values and suicide rates (r=0.57, p=0.001).
It has been also shown that there is a positive correlation between the happiness rate and the suicide rate (r=0.57, p=0.001). The higher the happiness rate, the higher the suicide rate, or the lower the happiness rate, the lower the suicide rate are together. This relationship and correlation were discussed. The positive relationship between the happiness rate and the suicide rate may be secondary to the increase in the expectation levels associated with the increase in the income rate.
Besides the positive correlation and relationships between income, happiness, and suicide rates, by looking at the values of the countries, it was concluded that 29 countries could be examined in five separate clusters.
Subject Areas; Social Policies, Sociology, Public Health
Key Words; GDP/capita, Income rate, Happiness rate, Suicide incidence
I. INTRODUCTİON
Much research has been done on whether there is a direct correlation between happiness and wealth. Conflicting results have been obtained on this subject, but most of the studies are at the personal level. Similar studies based on the countries are very limited (Agerbo 2001, Bantijes 2016, Altinanahtar 2009, Fleischmann 2005).
This study aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between happiness rates, GDP/capita, and suicide rates among countries, and to examine whether there is a clustering among the countries. Suicide rates may depend on many different factors such as belief, history, family structure, disasters, and a political regime based on countries. The clusters and correlations that can be revealed because of the analysis of income and happiness rates and suicide on a country basis will provide important clues for the prevention of suicide, which is an important public health problem.

Read More